Page 1 of Bela's Bounty
CHAPTERONE
Bela
Iwake, sprawled out, half on my side, half on my stomach. A dull vibration is coming up through the floor and radiating painfully through my skull. My head feels like it weighs as much as a bowling ball when I try to lift it, and I’m immediately hit with sharp stabs of pain, followed by waves of nausea.
Dropping back to the floor, I take some deep breaths to settle my stomach.
What the hell happened?
When things have mostly settled back down, I try turning my head, only to be met with fresh waves of pain that have me pressing the palm of my hand into my eye socket, where the worst of it is coming from behind my left eye.
What the hell did I drink last night?
Except I don’t remember drinking anything.
Did I fall and give myself a concussion?
I don’t remember falling either. In fact, the last memory I have is sitting on the porch outside the townhouse I share with three other women, holding a stolen cigarette I was trying to decide if I wanted to smoke or not.
I haven’t smoked in years, but after the shitty news I got earlier, the urge sent me filching one from my roommate. Booze would have been a better painkiller, but since all of us work long days for a miserly minimum wage, none of us can afford to keep it in the house. So I went for my back-up vice. Even though it’s been years since I quit, I can’t help worrying that one puff might have me falling off the wagon.
Squinting against another sharp flare, I turn my face and press my forehead into the cold metal floor. That’s when I notice the sounds of sniffling. Is someone crying? Taking a deep breath, I pry my eyelids open, only to snap them shut again at the bright light.
Christ, what is wrong with me?
“I think she’s waking up,” I hear someone whisper in a soft, southern drawl.
Blinking my eyes open once more, it takes a moment for my vision to clear, and I can see—
I close my eyes again and rest my head back on the cold metal floor.
Nope. That can’t be right.
“Hey, are you okay?” a much closer, feminine voice asks.
No. Not at all. Even though her voice is barely above a whisper, she might as well be shouting right into my ear, the way it echoes through my raw nerve endings, making me want to scream at her toshut up!
What the hell kind of demon-possessed migraine is this? I’ve had nasty headaches before, but nothing like this. I roll my forehead against the floor in an attempt to relieve the searing pain, to no avail. Maybe if I pound my forehead against the floor, it will dislodge whatever is causing this pain.
“You’ve been out the longest,” the woman is saying, just like every word isn’t an ice pick stabbing through my eye and into my brain. “We were starting to wonder if you’d wake up at all.”
Right now I’m certainly wishing I’d never woken up.
Taking a deep breath, I open my mouth only to find it’s desert-dry. I swallow convulsively, trying to get my salivary glands to get with it.
“I need…” God, is that hushed, raspy thingmyvoice? “Pills. Migraine. Water.”
Someone snorts, “That ain’t no migraine, honey.”
Rolling to my side, I pry my eyes open once more. This time I’m able to focus on the… the woman—thenaked woman—sitting beside me with her back to a row of bars.Bars?Her legs are folded against her chest, her ankles crossed; her head is turned, and she’s watching me. When she’s sure I’m watching her too, she pulls her braided hair back and taps a long red fingernail to a silver disk that sits flat against the brown skin behind her ear.
“This is what’s giving you problems,” she says, letting her hair fall back into place. “Looks like they might have fucked yours up, though, with the way you’re acting.”
My stomach clenches, threatening to expel whatever might be inside. Which isn’t much. Letting my eyes slide shut, I moan.Just great.The pounding behind my eye is getting worse, and a tremble starts in my hands as what she’s telling me starts to sink in.
What is thatthingbehind her ear? What does it mean if they fucked mine up? And why is she naked?
“Hey.” A warm hand gently rests on my shoulder.My naked shoulder.“You okay?” the woman beside me asks.
